Was It Real?
by briwd
Summary: Written for NFA's We're Not Canon challenge. Kate Todd went undercover to get 'close' to La Grenouille's daughter - and as she admits the truth to Jeanne Benoit, she may be in more trouble than anyone expected.


_Written for the We're Not Canon challenge at NFA._

**MTAC**

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was red-hot, steaming, pissed off at the Director of NCIS.

"I needed someone to gather information on La Grenouille."

Director Jenny Shepard, Gibbs knew, was hell-bent on going through with her crazy obsession with Rene Benoit and catching the French arms dealer by any means necessary.

"If that meant placing someone undercover, then that's what I was going to do."

Tony DiNozzo knew that as far back as the day Jenny took over for Thomas Morrow, and as recently as the day Jenny told him he was to go undercover as "online film professor Tony DiNardo" - an identity he never had the chance to use.

"I wanted to get someone close to La Grenouille's daughter. _Very _close."

Tim McGee knew how close, after Jenny approached him to see if he might be interested in working a 'top-secret' case - which, in his regard, meant leaving Gibbs in the dark. An impossible task, McGee thought, but Jenny trumped the boss in rank, and the junior agent had to follow orders.

"I had my agent in place, and then we found out that...circumstances made it necessary to change plans, and quickly."

McGee was asked to do an exhaustive background check on La Grenouille's daughter, Jeanne Benoit.

Discovering Jeanne's dating history, and her choice in after-hours bars, meant that Tony DiNardo could not possibly work as a love interest for Rene Benoit's daughter.

"I approached both of your two female agents - technically, agent and liaison from Mossad - and laid out their assignment."

Tony thought briefly about the myriad twists and turns the assignment could take after hours, then focused on the big screen - and looked to make sure the boss wasn't about to administer another headslap for Tony even _thinking_ about the 'after hours' part of the op.

Gibbs was ten feet away from Tony, glaring at the Director.

"As you now know, one went through with the operation-"

"You put _HER _in harm's way, Jenny!" Gibbs yelled. "And you didn't tell _ME _about _ANY_ of this!"

"_My _choice. _My _plan. _My orders_," Jenny said back, loudly and firmly, meeting his steely gaze with her own, causing Tony and McGee to tip-toe away to the other side of the room.

They both looked at the big screen, showing a satellite feed of the park where Jenny's hand-picked female agent was going to reveal herself to La Grenouille's daughter.

"Her state of mind had made it impossible for her to carry on with the operation," Jenny explained. "It was no longer possible for her to continue an intimate relationship with Jeanne Benoit."

"And what did that _get_ you, Director?" Gibbs said, bluntly. "_Anything_?"

Jenny glared at the big screen. "We start _over_," she bluntly said in response. "We go after La Grenouille _himself_-"

McGee walked over to Tony, both of them keeping one eye on the argument between Jenny and Gibbs and the other on the screen, showing security camera footage from a park, where their teammate sat with Jeanne Benoit.

"Somebody needs to be there, Tony," McGee whispered.

"Someone _is_, McObvious," Tony whispered back, "and it's not like we had any advance knowledge of this-"

"We should've told the boss-"

"And we would've gotten _fired_. You know how...obsessed...Jenny is with this guy."

"I hope she'll be alright, Tony."

"Don't worry, Probie. She's not alone, and it's just the daughter. Now if La Grenouille _himself_-"

Tony stopped talking, and focused on the screen.

A limousine stopped at the top of the screen. Three men got out; Tony looked more closely.

One bald, one bearded...both flanking a man in an overcoat.

Rene Benoit.

"_Boss_," Tony yelled, "that's _him_! Rene-"

"THAT'S LA GRENOUILLE!" Jenny yelled, at everyone in the room and into her headset. "Go to _Plan B_-Ballerina, get ready to move in for the extraction! Tony, McGee, go and provide backup!..._MOVE_!"

Tony and McGee looked at Gibbs, uncertain as to what to do.

"DiNozzo! McGee! _GO_!" Gibbs barked, and his other two agents ran up the ramp, knowing they'd arrive on the scene far too late.

"_Dammit _Jenny! Did you _THINK _this _THROUGH_?" Gibbs yelled at Jenny Shepard, who stood in front of the big screen, watching Rene Benoit make his way towards Jeanne Benoit and her supposed "lover".

"We _trust _Plan B," Jenny said. "Her teammate will back her up, and give enough time for her other teammates to arrive before anything happens...in the meantime, Jethro...Jethro?..._JETHRO_!"

Gibbs was gone, hoping to catch up to Tony and McGee before they left.

**Jeanne**

Jeanne Benoit's world came crashing down around her.

The woman she loved, whom she thought loved her back, and the relationship she thought they would have for a lifetime was all a damned, awful lie.

This woman, who came out of nowhere, with her beautiful brown hair, her big beautiful brown eyes, uncertain of her identity, in the early days...and so confident, so proud, so certain of who she was and what she thought about her, herself, _us_.

This midwestern woman who couldn't even bring herself to give Jeanne a peck on the cheek at first, and who grew to give Jeanne such glorious nights of passion.

_Her kisses. God, her kisses, such passion, lust, love in those closed-mouth kisses._

Jeanne was the very first person to show her how a woman could love another woman. Physicially, sexually, emotionally.

The woman Jeanne was staring at was, she thought, Katherine Pryde - an ironic name for someone clearly stuck in the closet - an Indianapolis native, and an art student at the University of the United States in suburban Maryland.

Jeanne and Katherine met "randomly" - _who knows now what the hell actually happened?_ - at a coffee shop near the hospital Jeanne worked at.

Jeanne thought this woman was _shy, and pretty, and so, so, SO attractive._ It didn't take long for Jeanne's charms to reel this girl in, although their dates initially went no further than long hugs and hand-holding.

After Jeanne confronted "Katie" on where the relationship was going, she was shocked when "Katie" planted one right on her lips...a very long, sweet, kiss that lit Jeanne on fire.

That kiss led to the first night Jeanne and Katherine made love...and a hope that Jeanne might have finally found someone to share her life with.

But it was all a damned lie.

This woman, Katherine, her Katie, her dream, her heart, was a liar.

She was actually a federal agent from something she never heard of - NCIS? - and she was undercover strictly to get close to Jeanne, and gain intel on Jeanne's father.

Jeanne didn't know what to do. She saw Katherine - or, agent Caitlin Todd - mouthing apologies, profusely, but heard nothing.

Her feelings were screaming everything she needed to hear.

Lies. Betrayal.

Lies.

Lies. More lies.

In the corner of Jeanne's eye, she saw her father and his bodyguards approaching.

_Maybe they would take care of this. Maybe he knew what this woman was..._

_...maybe daddy will punish this bitch for what she did to me.._

_..ohmigod what am I thinking? They're going to kill her..._

Jeanne started to break down, then composed herself, just as La Grenouille approached with his guards.

**Kate**

Kate Todd thought literally hundreds of times about handing in her resignation, each time resolving to go through with her part in Jenny's mission.

She didn't know if it was the implied threat of being blackballed in any other federal agency or local police department, or if it was the implied threat of what might happen to her if she took this to Gibbs.

Or if it was all in her mind, her fears taking Jenny's final instructions to the wildest extreme.

Kate went along, rationalizing to herself that she was helping take down a horrible arms dealer as bad in his own way as Ari Haswari ever was.

Kate told lie after lie with this man's daughter in order to win her trust, and her love.

Kate stopped going to church, telling her priest that she was on an extended mission.

She did things with Jeanne Benoit she never dreamed of doing in a million years.

Those things she did led her to believe there weren't enough confessions and rosaries in a lifetime to cover them; at best she'd be in purgatory _forever_.

On one date - with Jenny talking in her earpiece - Kate and Jeanne stopped in Target. Kate, the staunch Catholic, picked up a best-selling evangelical devotional book, took it to Jeanne's apartment, and after a night of lovemaking, read the thing straight through and felt worse than ever.

So, Kate poured on her shy, nice, midwestern charm and threw herself completely into her role.

And in turn, Jeanne Benoit made her feel things no man ever had..._her hands, her lips, her eyes, her hair, her scent. Her smile, her laugh, her gaze._

_Her touch. Her lips. _

_Her kiss._

But the conflict between her mission and her morals became too much for Kate to continue.

Interestingly to Jenny, it wasn't the sex that was the issue for Kate. Agent Todd did have a long history of sleeping with men she dated.

It was the conflict over the morality of leading on Jeanne Benoit, of lying to her.

Jenny could live with it and go to sleep without any regrets; Kate obviously could not. Jenny decided to call the op, informing Kate that she was only to break off the relationship. Kate begged Jenny to allow her to let Jeanne down 'gently'; Jenny simply said yes, and decided Kate was no longer useful as an undercover agent.

Whether her performance out in the field and as a profiler was sufficent for her to retain her job would have to be tabled for another day.

What Kate didn't tell the director was that she thought she had fallen head over heels in love with Jeanne. And unsure she really loved her at all. And unsure if these emotions were her own, or due to the manipulation of the Director.

Breaking up with Jeanne was the hardest thing Kate had ever done, but she believed it was for the best.

Kate had grown in all aspects of her job since Ari nearly killed her in Norfolk nearly two years before, but her profiling skills were still her strongest asset.

She couldn't help but profile the woman in front of her while, and after, coming clean, and thought Jeanne probably would try to murder her on the spot.

Kate probably would be able to defend herself one-on-one...but then she noticed Jeanne's father, and the guards with him.

_I've been made_, Kate thought, as she saw Jeanne's hurt look turn menacing.

_And I'm dead._

**Ziva**

Ziva had known Jenny Shepard for years, and had worked with her much more than any American agent other than Gibbs himself.

Ziva thought she knew the director well enough to be able to persuade her that she, not Caitlin Todd, was the person to take on this mission.

But Jenny, once she made up her mind, would not be persuaded differently.

Kate was better suited for the mission, Jenny said; Kate was much more Jeanne Benoit's type, Jenny said; Jenny needed Ziva elsewhere and especially to keep her mouth shut and NOT tell Gibbs anything about this op, Jenny said.

Ziva owed Jenny _everything_. Jenny got her onto Gibbs' team after the Ari debacle. Jenny stood up for Ziva when Kate, DiNozzo, Abby, McGee, even Gibbs himself mistrusted her. Jenny stood up for Ziva when her father Eli demanded she be sent back to Mossad.

And Ziva repaid Jenny with her loyalty.

_So what kind of price,_ Ziva thought, _would Caitlin pay?_

_She clearly did not want to go through with this op, _Ziva thought, as she watched Kate and Jeanne from a distance. _Who knows what Jenny said to her, promised her, threatened her, to get Caitlin to go through with this? _

Ziva loved Ari dearly, but she had to admit that she couldn't blame Kate for hating her brother after his intentions to murder her to prove some point to Gibbs were clear.

Just when she had gotten over all of that, and accepted Ziva as a part of the team, the director threw Kate into her own personal vendetta with Rene Benoit.

The director probably hadn't thought of the emotional price Kate would pay - nor, Ziva suspected, would she particularly care.

The one thing the Director _would_ care about was Kate's informing Jeanne about her real identity, as an NCIS agent and about the mission.

_Perhaps Gibbs can intercede on her behalf,_ Ziva thought, as she knelt in the nearby shrubbery, hiding from Jeanne and Kate.

Ziva thought about breaking Jenny's orders and moving in after Jeanne and Kate's conversation went south. When she saw La Grenouille and his body guards coming towards their position, Ziva decided on her own to do that.

Jenny's orders to go to 'Plan B' - which Ziva heard on her earpiece - confirmed Ziva's gut feeling.

She loaded her pistol, put it inside her back waist of her jeans, made sure the pistol in her side holster was loaded, and stealthily walked out of the shrubbery towards her teammate.

"Excuse me! _Excuse _me! _Hello_!"

Ziva waved her hand, like a lost tourist, and tried to grin as goofily as she saw Jimmy Palmer do a time or two at a crime scene.

"I am looking for the Jefferson Memorial! Can you help me _find _the Jef-fer-son Memorial?" Ziva said, grinning.

"I beg your pardon?" Jeanne said, still angry and confused over Kate's admission, and trying like hell to figure out how to cover up for her to her father.

"I am looking for the Jefferson Memorial. Do you" - looking at Jeanne - "or _you_" - turning to Kate - "know where it is?"

Ziva then mouthed to Kate '_I will get us out of this. Follow my lead_'.

Jeanne noticed their strange visitor was mouthing something, while her father and his guards had stopped, a short distance away.

**Gibbs, Tony, McGee**

Tony, riding shotgun in Gibbs' car, looked backward, and saw a dazed McGee typing on his laptop, then looked over at the speedometer.

101 miles an hour.

Gibbs had never driven this fast, this wildly; was that Anthony DiNozzo Sr. in the back of that truck - or was Tony's life flashing before his eyes?

"_DINOZZO_! DIAL THE _DIRECTOR_!"

"_On _it boss!"

Tony dialed Jenny's cell phone, and glanced in his rearview mirror.

_Flashing red and blue lights, way in the distance. Great. Gibbs got the attention of Metro police._

"_PUT _HER ON _SPEAKER_!" Gibbs screamed, swerving in and out of traffic and running through yet another red light.

"MCGEE! How close are we?!...MCGEE..._MCGEE_!"

McGee looked at the map on his laptop. "Two miles, boss. We should be there in a minute-"

"JENNY! Get these damn cops off my _tail_-" Gibbs shouted.

"Gibbs, how close are you-" Jenny said from MTAC, watching Ziva engage Jeanne and Kate, while La Grenouille and his goons stood nearby.

"Not close enough, and I've got Metro police on my bumper! I _NEED _THEM TO BACK OFF!"

"I'll _call _Metro," said Jenny, realizing that Gibbs had been speeding, and nailed by local police. "Jessica. Contact Metro PD, give them the license number and make and model of Gibbs' car, tell them he is moving in to assist an agent in danger and they are to assist and not to impede him. If they give you any problem give them to _ME_."

**Jeanne, Kate and Ziva**

Ziva had pulled out a picture of the Lincoln Memorial, showing it to Jeanne and Kate, inanely asking them if that was Thomas Jefferson and where she could go to find his body.

"I thought that his body would lie in memoriam at his memorial," Ziva explained, "like Len-non at the Kremlin in Moscow."

Jeanne eyed her father, who motioned for his guards to follow him and started walking briskly towards her.

"Lady, where are you _from_?" Jeanne asked, annoyed at their intruder.

"_Peoria_," Ziva replied to Jeanne. "Would you take me to see President Jefferson?"

Ziva saw Rene Benoit and his guards steadily moving in, and knew they'd be on her and Kate before they could make a run for it.

Which turned out to be the case.

"Ah, Jeanne," La Grenouille said, "and _Katherine_. I thought I was going to miss you two."

Ziva's mind raced, trying to figure out how to get her and Kate out of this, and hoping that Gibbs had been listening in on the whole thing and was on his way.

There was no sign of him anywhere, though. Only La Grenouille, and his goons, hands on their weapons.

"Forgive me. My _manners_," Rene Benoit said, nodding to Ziva. "Jeanne, I have not been introduced to your friend."

"I...I...I do not know this woman. She is a..." Jeanne's demeanor changed, from uncertain to steely. "She is a _tourist_, apparently, who says she is looking for the Jefferson Memorial."

"Ah," Rene Benoit said. "A tourist...may I ask where you are from?"

"I am from _Peoria_," Ziva said, confidently, hands behind her back, one on her gun.

"Oh?" Rene replied. "...and you are looking for, what was it again, the...?"

"The Jefferson Memorial."

"Oh...you are from Peoria?" Rene said. "That is a most curious accent...Chilean, perhaps? Or Israeli?"

_Good lord,_ Kate thought. _He's made Ziva._

"Then I would be happy to escort you there myself," Rene said. "Along with my daughter and her girlfriend...right, Jeanne and Katherine?"

Jeanne, not knowing for sure where her father was going with this, her mind half-muddled over what Kate had just admitted to her, nodded yes.

"Then come with us, Miss..."

"Annie Hall." The first name that came to Ziva's mind, probably because Tony had recommended the movie of the same name to her incessantly over the past month.

"A most _American _name...for a young woman who seems to be of _non-American_ descent," Rene said, smoothly and charmingly. "Please. Come with my daughters, and my friends..._I insist_."

Ziva cautiously stepped forward, Kate standing up, reaching her hand out towards Jeanne.

"Perhaps we should arrange a visit not just to the Jefferson Memorial, but to another landmark," Rene said. "Like the _Navy Yard_."

The goons stepped forward.

Ziva looked over, saw that Kate's pistol was in the back of her waist, and judged she probably could take out the two goons with a head shot, while throwing herself in front of Kate.

_That should give Kate enough time to get away._

"Of course," Ziva said, even as Jeanne looked like she was about to do something unexpected. She pulled out her phone to hand to Kate.

"I have a new phone, with PBS on it," Ziva said. "It can give us-"

The bearded goon stepped forward, moving two feet in front of Kate and Ziva. "I'll _take _that," he said, grabbing the phone, then looking back at Ziva. "Hold on...did you say..._PBS_?"

"Yes. PBS. Is that not what they call it?"

"PBS...is a television network. What's _on_ that-"

The bearded goon, and everyone else, heard the loud screeching of tires, ten feet behind Rene Benoit and his other guard, followed by a shout.

"FEDERAL AGENTS! _PUT YOUR WEAPONS DOWN. NOW!_"

The bearded goon turned around, and pulled his gun out; Ziva and Kate knocked him unconscious with a kick to the head and a punch to the ribs, respectively.

The other goon pulled out his own weapon to fire, only to get shot three times, once in the hands, once in the shoulder and once in the chest.

Ziva, seeing the other guard shot, briefly looked at Rene Benoit to see if he was going to pull out a gun; he merely stood in place.

The occupants of the car were Gibbs, Tony and McGee; Tony checked on the goon next to Rene Benoit, then pulled his gun on La Grenouille; McGee ran to Jeanne Benoit and pulled a gun on her; Gibbs ran to Ziva and Kate.

"Kate, Ziva, are you _both _alright?" he said, with an urgency Kate hadn't seen since he sighted the gleam of Ari's rifle on that rooftop in Norfolk.

"I'm...I'm _fine_," Kate stammered.

"I am fine," Ziva replied. "_We_ are fine."

"I'm going to _kill _Jenny when this is done," Gibbs muttered.

Rene Benoit, as it turned out, was prepared to turn himself in to an American federal agency.

The 'goon' closest to Rene when Gibbs arrived was CIA Agent Trent Kort. He figured out who Katherine Pryde really was, and that she was sent by Jenny Shepard.

Kort talked Rene into turning himself in, at the Navy Yard, in front of Jenny, but to Tobias Fornell and the FBI - who were waiting for them, back at the Navy Yard.

Metro PD arrived two minutes later, to provide unneeded backup, as Gibbs and his team had the situation well in hand.

While Gibbs talked to Rene Benoit, and DiNozzo secured the other goon, McGee stood guard over Jeanne.

"Kate? She wants to talk to you," McGee yelled.

Ziva reached out and touched Kate's arm.

"You do not have to speak to her if you do not want to," said Ziva.

"I _want _to," Kate replied, then walked to Jeanne, standing in front of her.

Gibbs motioned for Tony to stand next to Rene Benoit while he walked towards Kate and Jeanne.

Jeanne stood up, looked briefly at McGee, Gibbs and Ziva, then stared intently at Kate, before speaking.

"All I want...to know," she said to Kate, "...is what we had. What you _told_ me. What we _did_. How we were. Was there any _truth _to all of that.

"Was it _real_? And be _honest _this time."

Kate stared back at her, looked downwards to her right, then back at Jeanne.

"I don't know," said Kate, uncertain of her feelings for Jeanne, and if they were the truth or due to the manipulations of Jenny Shepard's thankless obsession.

"_You _don't _know_," she spat out at Kate, then turned to Gibbs. "I want to be with my father," she said to him.

As Tony and McGee loaded the Benoits into Gibbs' car, Metro PD loaded the one goon into their own vehicle, and an ambulance pulled up to take Kort to a nearby emergency room, Gibbs pulled Kate and Ziva aside.

"We're waiting for a ride," said Gibbs, who called Ducky and told him to send Palmer to pick them up. "Kate...I know you acted under orders, and I promise you I will have Jenny's head for this. I_promise _you."

She heard none of it.

A thousand thoughts were rushing through Kate's mind right then, but as she took in the scene and what had just happened, she realized one thing.

This group of agents, she had held at a distance for four years, whom she had tried to separate from her "real" life, had been there for her when she needed them the most.

She had no idea what she felt about Jeanne, whether their love was real or not. She wasn't certain about whether the director had intended to manipulate her.

But Kate Todd knew at that moment this team was family to her, as much as her parents and her siblings, because they showed it by putting themselves on the line.

Ziva and her goofy act. The eight-inch deep tire marks on the ground. Gibbs rushing out to take command. Tony shooting the goon. McGee right with them. Abby probably would have been right there, as would Ducky and Palmer, if Gibbs had let them.

_Maybe Jeanne was real,_ Kate thought.

Her NCIS family _definitely _was for real.


End file.
